LARRABEE, William Henry - Montgomery InGenWeb Project

One of Montgomery Counties joys was William Henry Larrabee born near Crawfordsville on his parents farm near Crawfordsville Feb 21, 1870 son of Thomas Wilford and Anna McNamara Larrabee one of at least ten children.  He was slightly over 90 when he passed away Nov 16, 1960.  His schooling was in Danville, Indiana at Indiana Central Normal and Indiana State Normal at Terre Haute.  For awhile he taught school but decided to go to medical school which he graduated from in Indianapolis thus beginning his practice in New Palestine.  From 1916-18 he served on Hancock County’s Board of Health, was on the city council as well and in 1930 was elected to Congress (Democrat) serving for 12 years.  

While in Congress, he was on the Committee of the Census; Committee of Education and had been in the city council at New Palestine to ready him for congress. One interesting item in the Carthage IN Citizen in 1928 noted that he had been a resident of Hancock County all of his life, which we know is not true and assuming the newspapers fault.  That article went on to say “he was thoroughly honest, capable and upright, standing for those things in life which are for the best interests of our citizenship.”  My kind of politician!

During World War II, he actively pushed for helping the British.  Sadly, it was not beneficial to his career and he lost his 1942 election but still practiced medicine in his adopted town of New Palestine.  An interesting note here is that he was succeeded Indiana’s first female legislators, Virginia Jenckes – wish she was from Montgomery County as she had a super interesting life as well.  – kbz